Four of the nine international transport corridors pass through the territory of Ukraine: №3, №5, №7,
and №9. In recent years Ukraine conducted an active policy supporting the European initiatives on the
international transport corridors and offered variants of corridors to the European community. In the field
of a water transport it is planned to carry out the construction of new and reconstruction of existing
infrastructure (regarding corridors № 9; TRACECA; Baltic - Black Sea) in the main Ukrainian ports.
The paper considers the situation in the Ukrainian waterways as a part of the international transport
corridors. It presents an analysis of the existing situation and some planning measures. In order to
optimize and rationally development the inland waterways and seaports of the Black Sea – Azov Sea
region it is necessary to speed up the working out and official approval of the regional transport ways
network. Regarding Ukrainian seaports this task is carried out within the framework of program
TRACECA, and also by Steering Committee of Black Sea PETRA and working group on transport of the
Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation.
To connect the new members countries of EU two approaches are considered: (1) the use of the
Danube River due to restoration of navigation in its Ukrainian part, providing an exit to the Black Sea; (2)
the creation of new inland water-transport links providing a more rational and uniform distribution of
freight traffics from the Central and Northern Europe (using the third largest river in Europe - Dnepr
River running into the Black Sea).
It is important to assess also a condition of development of transport flows in the neighboring states
(states of European transport corridors), in particular in the Russian Federation (Big Ring Project and
others). There are good prospects of Ukrainian waterways involvement in the system of international
transport corridors. Some improvements of the existing structures are needed together with an optimized
use of Ukrainian transport potential. There is a large reserve of capacity which represent a base for an
optimistic prediction of the future Ukrainian waterways development as part of European transport axis.